The Trump administration is calling out reporters by name as it seeks to push its narrative about U.S. strikes on Iran, seeking to put the media on defense while stifling any talk about intelligence reports that fall short of saying Tehran’s nuclear capabilities were obliterated.
The attacks are targeting a broad swathe of the press that includes specific reporters cable news outlets as different as CNN and Fox News.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News personality himself, from a Pentagon podium on Thursday morning said “Jennifer, you’ve been about the worst” as part of a broad attack on the media.
He was singling out Jennifer Griffin, a respected defense reporter who asked if the department was certain that all of Iran’s highly enriched uranium was at the Fordow nuclear facility.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt from her own podium later on Thursday singled out CNN reporter Natasha Bertrand, saying she had written “a lie from the intelligence community to seek a narrative she wanted to prove.”
The personal attacks are unusual and underscore the administration’s determination to put the media on defense and win a public relations air war over success of the attacks on Iran.
The administration is confident of its success because it has worked before, and because of general distrust of the media.
“These people are never going to lose any polling points attacking the media, we know that for sure,” one national political reporter told The Hill on Thursday. “But this is getting pretty personal and feels like it’s getting more intense each day.”
Trump also called out Bertrand by name on Wednesday, demanding that the network fire her for her reporting on the intelligence and referencing her previous reporting relating to Hunter Biden, Russian influence in the 2016 election and the coronavirus pandemic.
CNN issued a forceful statement hours later defending Bertrand.
“CNN’s reporting made clear that this was an initial finding that could change with additional intelligence,” a spokesperson for the network said. “We have extensively covered President Trump’s own deep skepticism about it. However, we do not believe it is reasonable to criticize CNN reporters for accurately reporting the existence of the assessment and accurately characterizing its findings, which are in the public interest.”
The network’s top political anchor, Jake Tapper, called Trump’s attack “preposterous,” and said the president was “going after, shooting the messengers in an increasingly ugly way.”
The New York Times, another target of the administration’s ire, also issued a statement on Wednesday defending its reporting on the leaked memo and vowing to “continue to report fully on the administration’s decision making, including his dispute with the Defense Intelligence Agency.”
Hegseth, a former colleague of Griffin, suggested a personal beef during his press conference on Thursday.
“Jennifer, you’ve been about the worst. The one who misrepresents the most intentionally,” the Defense secretary told Griffin after she asked if he was completely confident all the highly enriched uranium was inside the Fordow mountain where the strikes had taken place.
Griffing was quick to defend herself.
“In fact, I was the first to describe the B-2 bombers, the refueling, the entire mission with great accuracy,” she shot back at the secretary. “So I take issue with that.”
Minutes later, Brit Hume, one of Fox’s longest serving political analyst, chastised Hegseth on the network’s air over the outburst.
“Her professionalism, her knowledge, her experience at the Pentagon is unmatched,” Hume said. “I have had and still have the greatest regard for her. The attack on her was unfair.”
Trump and his allies have repeatedly sought to discredit the leaked intelligence, saying the Iranian nuclear program has been totally “obliterated,” and vowing to investigate the intelligence that was leaked to media outlets.
Leavitt suggested that whoever leaked the intelligence to media outlets “should be in jail” while going after Bertrand.
“This is a reporter who has been used by people who dislike Donald Trump in this government to push fake and false narratives,” she said.
The intensifying rhetoric is raising concerns among press freedom groups, and calling to mind other moves the administration has taken to crack down on media coverage it views as unsupportive of its agenda.
“This is a familiar pattern by now: journalists report something Trump doesn’t like, and he lashes out. He wants the press to parrot his talking points, and when they don’t, he tries to bully them into submission,” said Clayton Weimers, executive director of Reporters with Borders.
“That’s why he’s suing CBS, the Des Moines Register, and the Pulitzer Board. It’s why he banned the AP from the White House and wants to pad the White House briefing room and press pool with friendly right-wing voices.”
Tim Richardson, program manager for journalism and disinformation at PEN America, told The Hill on Thursday the administration is trying to vilify journalists “who accurately characterized that intelligence, rather than addressing the substance of his own administration’s intelligence report.”
“These attacks erode public trust in fact-based reporting and embolden harassment against journalists who ask hard questions, especially in times of international conflict,” Richardson added.
Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Hegseth appears to disdain the media.
“There’s no question that the way he has approached this reflects a lot of personal judgment and paranoia, very frankly, about the role of the press,” Panetta said. “Rather than trying to paint the press as coming from one direction or the other, that’s a trap. It’s a trap because, frankly, we have press on all sides, on the left and the right, in the middle, all basically speaking to the truth.”
Seth Stern, director of advocacy at Freedom of the Press Foundation, added The White House’s response to the leaked intelligence reporting “shows that their crackdowns on journalists and whistleblowers have nothing to do with national security and everything to do with saving themselves from embarrassment.”
Some argue that while Trump might be winning political points attacking the press over the intel leak episode, he could also be taking a risk if the Iranian nuclear facilities are proven to not be completely “obliterated.”
“The irony is that Trump would get MORE credit if he weren’t so relentlessly craven about claiming–and overclaiming–it,” David Axelrod, a longtime Democratic political operative and Trump critic wrote on the social platform X.
“It was cynical even by Trump’s standards for him to suggest that to question the instant, conclusive analysis he offered Americans in the hours after the B-2 mission, was in any way an attack on the brave men and woman who carried it out. It was more than cynical. It was cowardly.”